Friday, July 22, 2005

Friday femmes fatales No 15

Where are all the female bloggers? Here, in my weekly top ten.

You've probably read about all you can take for the moment on the abortion views of US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts (my judgement: just look at who nominated him and there's your answer, sadly), but The Gimp Parade has information on his stance on disablity rights that you might not have come across.

Mind the Gap has got angry about Playboy merchandise in WH Smith (the largest chain of newsagents in Britain). She says: "I hate to think about the reactions in the mind of some Playboy reader when he sees a 12-year-old girl in a little T-shirt adorned with our bunny friend." In the post to which I'm pointing she suggests what you can do about it.

100 word minimum is a blog that is self-explanatory in intention. The author describes herself as a "recovering computer engineering student", and quotes Jane Austen: "it is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated". That pretty well describes the post to which I've pointed, about making a coffee cake. Santiago dreaming is also concentrating on the details of life's sometimes messy fabric.

Moving on from food, I've got virtually no sense of smell, so have never worried much about perfumes, but this post by Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, which sees scent as central to identity, almost converted me.

On to sight, and Breebop is an artist who, I'd suggest, is under-rating her own work. Judge for yourself: I find this "warrior woman" an attractive painting.

But you couldn't under-rate the bravery of one traveller. Unlike those males who load themselves down with a fridge to walk around Ireland, and similar such stunts, The Adventures of Gimpy Girl is recording a trip around China in a (necessary) wheelchair. (And I might add this will be highly educative for the locals, for my experience in Asia is that disability is utterly invisible, because it is hidden away as a source of embarrassment.)

Still on the adventurous side, 360 degrees of sky is written by an Irishwoman working in Zambia. This post contains "breaking news" about "code chicken", which reminds me of being a country journalist, when my all-time low story was "soaker hoses stolen from garden shed".

Completing the short international tour, Stitched in Holland has been making cross-continental links with her needlework, while La Coquette who begs "don't hate me because I live in Paris", is reflecting on an international bloggers' picnic.

Please, if you're impressed by something by a female blogger in the next week - particularly by someone who doesn't yet get a lot of traffic - tell me about it, in the comments here, or by email. Remember, I'm going for a list of 200 different female bloggers.

Blogs on which I post

My favourite charity is
Ethiopiaid, particularly for its work in supporting the Addis Ababa
Fistula Hospital. They say £100 pays for an operation that usually restores
the health of a woman whose body has been almost destroyed by childbirth. I
doubt many charities do more with your cash.